First: the dog bathroom. We struggled with a porch potty for the dogs for a while, but Becky and our favorite contractor got together and designed what they thought would be the perfect dog outhouse. It has a dog door straight out from the house, it hooks into the spigot (for rinsing) and the downspout (for drainage), and has a side door for picking up solids.

The second adventure was how to get the picnic table to the lower deck, since it was taking up too much room. It seemed silly to carry a 150-pound picnic table through the house, out the front door, down and around to the back yard, and back up two flights of stairs, when it only really needed to move 10 feet straight down.

So we tied some rope to it, sent Becky down to guide the landing, and lowered it over the side of the deck. Easy peasy! (Photos by Lucy, who was standing a safe distance away.)

Here’s the end result: a lovely, livable back porch with our garden boxes, the dog outhouse, and a little table where we can eat meals on nice days.

It took a while to get here, but we really like it. And, in fact, all of this will be moving with us to the new house!